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Kudzu Tuesday

Posted on September 18 2012 - 12:05 AM - Posted by:





Good Morning!

Funny what gets my mind to going and where it goes.

Yesterday, I was reading the Governor’s piece on Breitbart. Gosh, I hate reading about that creep McGinniss even when it is the Governor writing it, but I muddled through. The more McGinniss is proven to be the dishonest creep he is, the more his book character assassination of the Governor is proven to be a pile of dung. But that is not where my mind wandered off to.

A statement the Governor referenced in her piece made me chuckle, and then mind wandering began…….

Morris describes how false narratives can become a sort of prison. He opens by reminding us of the story of “The Count of Monte Cristo” – the novel about an innocent man who escapes from the seemingly inescapable island prison he was sent to. Morris writes that today we have an even worse prison than that fictional one – only ours is “built out of newsprint and media. A prison of beliefs. You can escape from prison, but how do you escape from a convincing story? After enough repetitions, the facts come to serve the story and not the other way around. Like kudzu, suddenly the story is everywhere and impenetrable.”

Kudzu?

Kudzu?

An Alaskan fully grasping figurative language using kudzu? Now that is just funny to me!

Kudzu is an insane species from the pea family originally from Japan. It was brought to the United States to help with soil erosion and has about taken over the Southeastern United States causing all sorts of trouble. Now it is a joke in the south, because, when you want to cry it helps to laugh instead.

All this was rolling around in my head…….Alaska, Governor Palin, Kudzu, McGinniss, the South, something being taken over by what seems to be harmless.

There is a reason question 29 on the Redneck test is: Do you want the goats to get into the kudzu? Any good southerner would know the answer is not just YES, but HELL YES! I also thought, dang, Bean was right….the Governor is a true honorary southerner. She not only knows what kudzu is, but understands the aggressive, impenetrable qualities it possesses. Just recently, I went for a trail run along the James River in Richmond….amongst the kudzu…..

Wow, just look at that stuff. I was taken back to my childhood of being in the pea patch with my grandparents as I ran that morning through the vines. They encroached on the path severely and my ankles remained in constant contact with the plants. (Hubby was my photographer by the way.) As I ran, these vines impeded my natural stride causing me to slow down, check my balance and not be able to run up to my full potential.

As my mind remembered this run and the Governor referencing kudzu in her piece I realized……the Government is kudzu.

Government seems harmless and it is when small and within the confines of our Constitution. Government has a habit of coming into an area to fill a small need and then it grows, becomes aggressively invasive and impenetrable. It is welcomed at first then, while we are occupied with other things in life, we turn around and it has grown and worked its way into the very fabric of our community. It makes regulations regarding areas it has no intimate knowledge of, it just wants to grow thick. It wants to set rules and requirements that slow down the growth of real economic growth, it affects the stride of our small businesses growing and employing more people, it snares and entangles until the landscape of our town and even the people who live there look nothing like before.

Yes, the Government is kudzu. It has been implanted in areas of our society, grown and taken over and all we can do is let the goats get in it and chow down.

Have a great day.

The News:

Hey, the government has figured out how to do something else more expensively than the private sector!

I thought it was just my imagination. I even saw a reference to health care in Runner’s World Magazine that was totally out of place…hmmmmm…..not my imagination after all.

Remember him?

Might be a photo finish.

Truth.

Inflation.

Stating the obvious.

Embarrassing.

If this guy ends up murdered, blood is on their hands.

Looky! More applicants for amnesty!

What? You don’t want to see who you are killing?

Huh? But their degree says Haarvaaaaaard.

Did you know we require school districts to  re-distribute their wealth here in Texas? We have no income tax so schools are supported by property taxes. Years ago the courts ruled that was unfair to poorer property areas and we needed to re-distribute that wealth.

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  • OldPat

    Hi, Lip, love your treatise on kudzu and your solution for handling it.  Wonder if we could do the same thing to the PPC, LSM and CCC? 

    Just fence in the Beltway, electrify the fence, and turn in the goats and a few cows.  Why not fight fire with fire? 

    When I heard you were gonna help Firelight, I just knew this would happen – but so soon?

    All Pandora had was an ole box, but you’ve done her one better.  Girl, you’ve released ‘irreverent insouciance’ upon the world.  LOL.

  • OldPat

    Crosspost
    What is that popping sound I hear?  Is it Andrea Mitchell’s little bubble of smug superiority being burst as she realizes WE are coming to Washington?

    LOL.  Not a chance, and not nearly as bright as she thinks.  Rather, it’s small capillaries in her head going ‘pop, pop, pop’ one by one.

    Hey, Andrea, I guess you finally figured out those face-lifts were only gonna carry you so far, but you gotta do a lot better than this if you’re gonna keep those brain cells from atrophying.

    You see, girl, that sound we’re all hearing when you try to think is just Mother Nature’s gentle reminder to ‘Use it or lose it.’ so you best get to work.  LOL

    Lipstick, you see what I mean?  I’m blaming this one on you!  Well, Firelight too ’cause she was your enabler.  LOL.

  • RefudiateGOPe
    • Riley4Palin

      That was beautiful.  So many people try and take on that song and fail miserably.  This girl has a very bright future in the industry if she stays grounded.

    • blackbird

      Thanks RO, she is awesome, I hope some band, record label picks her up and her star shines bright, what a voice.

      I thought of Journey’s current singer: Meet Journey’s New Singer – Found on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VccPl_uLpWA

  • Riley4Palin

    Jedediah Bila nails it in one tweet:

    Instead of being outraged that Romney said 47% don’t pay federal income taxes, be outraged that 47% don’t pay federal income taxes.

    • BostonBruin

      Interesting take by John Nolte at Breitbart in that he believes the timing of the “47%” video was a panic move by Team Obama to give the media something else to focus on instead of the Libya embassy deaths. This may have been an October surprise that Team Obama was forced to use before they wanted to.
      http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/09/18/Live-Blog-Media-Sept-18-2012

      IMO, it back-fired. After listening to Romney’s press conference yesterday, I think he did an excellent job of making the clear distinction between two competing visions of America’s future.

      • Riley4Palin

        Boston:

        Interesting take from Nolte.  I agree, complete distraction.  You can always tell how much the Obama campaign screws up by how their lap dogs sink to new levels of fake outrage and quickly pounce on Romney. 

        Right now, it is a toss up between Chuck Todd and John Heileman of who wins The Biggest Jackass Award for the week.  Both characters have won mulitple times already this year, but even they have outdone themselves in the last 24 hours.

      • LS as guest

        I expect he’s right.  Too bad we don’t see the GOP keeping the focus where it belongs.

        This is a place for Romney surrogates to speak out.  What, Chris Christie isn’t particularly strong on the Islamic threat, you say?

        Foreign affairs doesn’t seem to have been part of the Romney game plan, and they don’t seem very adept at adding it in late.

        Oh, and great pic, Lip!

  • http://www.twitter.com/whitneypitcher Whitney Pitcher

    Good morning!

    Excellent and poetic story about kudzu, Lipstick! So fitting! I hadn’t heard of that plant before yesterday to be honest.

    Regarding the Runner’s World/Obamacare thing, I’d done some research about that recently. Obama tweeted out a quote from Women’s Health magazine about birth control. Turns out that the publishers of Women’s Health, Men’s Health, Runner’s World is an Obama donor and despite doing primarily health and wellness publications, they also published Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth.

    http://palin4america.com/2012/08/president-obamas-convenient-lie-provides-free-advertising-for-his-donors/

    Even seemingly benign periodicals have become messaging arms of Obama.

  • hrh40

    Great government = kudzu analogy!

  • Bean Counter

    Kudzu – the vine that ate the South.

    Perfect analogy, Lipstick, equating kudzu to the federal government. The only thing I would add is that short of a baby nuke, you can’t kill it. Cutting it back only p*sses it off. I remember being involved in high school pranks where we would “get” an annoying teacher or some bully, by placing some kudzu cuttings around said person’s house. Before they knew what was happening, their entire house would be involved like a fire. Kinda like the alien plant in ‘Little Shop of Horrors.’ And yeah, I’m really not surprised that Gov. Palin would not only know about kudzu, but understand and appreciate its ability to literally consume whatever it comes in contact with. State and local governments spend literally millions of dollars annually to try and control it, especially along highways.

    The media is acting like this 47% Romney video is another Zapruder film with Romney spotted on the grassy knoll with an assault rifle. I’m no fan of the clueless goober, but what he said is absolutely true. I wish he wouldn’t do these damage control press statements, though, just gives the story legs and extends the news cycle for the media to beat him up. Funny thing, however, I don’t recall this much of an uproar over Obama’s off the record bitterclinger remarks in ’08. Shocking, isn’t it?

    In other news, my no account heath insurance is going up again next month — almost to $700 a month w/a 5k deductible and no office visit co-pays. I’ve said this before, but I wonder how much it’s gonna cost me when I no longer have a preexisting condition? This is a major reason why more people can’t/won’t start a business.

    Well, I guess I’d better get to work so I can afford my health insurance and all the taxes I have to pay this wonderful government that does so much for me, and makes it so easy to have a prosperous business.

    You want to solve the Middle East problem? Just export kudzu over there. Within a month, they won’t have any more time to riot, set stuff on fire and kill innocent people. They’ll be swallowed up in the green vine of death.

    • LS as guest

      Egads!  Have you tried SBSB, Bean?

      • Bean Counter

        What is SBSB? Do you mean BlueCross BlueShield? I’m 3 yrs away from Medicare, assuming it still exists 3 yrs from now, so I’m basically treading water until then. What I did before I was diagnosed with cancer was keep a policy until they raised the premiums to a level I refused to pay, then find a cheaper policy until it likewise got too expensive. Now, my options are limited. I may root around and see what else may be out there. This is insane.

        • LS as guest

          They of course have different plans by state.  I believe the local laws determine whether pre-existing conditions are covered.

          http://www.sbsb.com/ 

  • BostonBruin

    “Huh? But their degree says Haarvaaaaaard.”

    Ok, it’s clear I need to give both Lipstick and Firelight a lesson on how to say “Harvard” with a Boston accent. You don’t pronounce the r’s, so it’s more like:

    Haaaaaahhhhh vaaaaaahhhhdddd !

    LOL ! :-)

    • Lipstick

       LOL! Thanks for the diction lesson, I’ll remember that since it is fun to poke fun at Harvard.

      I actually went to Harvard, once….I was there at a Science teacher’s convention years ago and ditched the meetings to tour a bit. Went to Harvard and did the Paul Revere ride self tour, Cheers, that sort of stuff. Went to the Tea Party ship and even out to Lexington and Concord.

      It was fun and Boston is a really nice city with tons of history.

      • TexMex817

        Same here. My brother and I went into an empty classroom and wrote “Killroy was here,” drew a picture and when we left, we didn’t turn the lights off. 

        TexMex: Have chalk, will graffiti 

    • Firelight

      LOL!!

  • c4pfan

    I saw that the lawsuit that the weirdo guy yelling at Bristol was dropped.  He still may go after Lifetime.  Stupid.

  • http://www.facebook.com/john.frank1954 John Frank

    Barry Rubin: What Really Happened in Egypt and Libya: A Simple Answer and a Surprising One
    http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2012/09/17/what-really-happened-in-egypt-and-libya-a-simple-answer-and-a-surprising-one/?singlepage=true

    • blackbird

      Thanks for the link John. Obama has failed miserably, beyond miserably. I cannot stomach even to think about him. People’s lives are in the balance, in perilous conflict areas, life and death situations, in disastrous economic straights and this is who we have to look toward for leadership in these very dangerous of times, a self absorbed incompetent…

      anyway John I will miss your old Spanish galleon avatar.

      I am here listening to supertramp ever open door http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9poE_RbrTc I like this song a lot.

  • cookboy

    Great post!

  • Bean Counter
    • http://www.twitter.com/whitneypitcher Whitney Pitcher

       Thanks for helping out us ignorant yankees. ;) One of those images, a map, shows probably why I was unfamiliar with the plant:

      http://www.city-data.com/forum/attachments/houston/7974d1190341191-houston-vs-seattle-kudzu_distr.jpg

    • blackbird

      I was wondering if you could eat kudzu: Did You Know You Can Eat Kudzu? http://www.thekitchn.com/did-you-know-you-can-eat-kudzu-92488

      People even smoke it LOL! Is It Safe To Smoke Kudzu? http://www.sodahead.com/living/is-it-safe-to-smoke-kudzu/question-1337853/

      • Bean Counter

        I’ve known people who prepare kudzu like you would cook collard greens or turnip greens, but I’ve never eaten any, nor do I care to. Occasionally you’ll see folks gather it from the side of a highway, but I don’t think you could wash the stuff well enough to get all the exhaust and other road residue off it. The smoking thing is news to me.

        • Bill589

          “Did you ever eat a pine tree?” I grew up in the woods, and know of many ‘wild’ foods. Many wild ‘poisons’ too, so don’t eat anything until you researched and are sure about it. I guess I won’t see Kudzu up here in the northeast, and it sounds like that might be a blessing.

          • blackbird

            Like Cassava, you have to be careful how you prepare it, I do not like it too much and it’s stringy. Mushrooms are another one to watch out for.

          • RefudiateGOPe

             Your comment reminded me of this guy:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJMIu18I8Y

            • Bill589

              Euell Gibbons wrote books about wild foods, and he is the one I was referring to. I just forgot his name.

        • blackbird

          I definitely won’t be eating anything growing at the side of the road.

  • Bill589

    In the few short bursts of tv news I watched today, each time I heard that Mitt said, “I don’t care about the 47%.” They have a recording of this.

    I’m sure it was just a stupid way of making a larger point, but it amazes me that Mitt has made it this far in his political career. This ‘gaffe’ supports the claim that Mitt is a disconnected aristocrat who works to benefit the ‘aristocracy’ and doesn’t have a clue about what it is like to be middle-class, let alone poor.

    IMO, Mitt needs new advisors and he must, must, must stay on prompter.  (I can’t believe this sentence was on a teleprompter.)
    O Must Go.

    • blackbird

      I have a friend that tells me Romney is out of touch and as you say disconnected aristocrat who works to benefit the ‘aristocracy’ he used to tell me how great Obama is but that was before I started educating him, now he only says Romney will be worse.

      I agree Bill “he must, must, must stay on prompter” the system is heavily rigged against him.

  • MJosephSheppard

    http://tiny.cc/s3tukw

    U.K.’s Telegraph:”No Choice Election Now But In Right Hands Crony Capitalism Would’ve Been Winner” Calling Dr. Palin

    Writing at the U.K. prestigious Daily Telegraph their political commentator Iain Martin basically renounces his original support for Mitt Romney as the best candidate in the Obama/Romney race as declares this is now a one man election. “The spectacular implosion of Mitt Romney means A No Choice Election”This is of course subsequent to the release of the now infamous “47% video in which, in the opinion of not only the rabid leftist media which is, as one would expect, absolutely slobbering over it, but also numerous conservative luminaries such as William Kristol who suggests Romney stand downThere is no need for me to discuss the tape, for those so inclined the Memeorandum accumulation site has an endless list of critiques etc and Mr. Martin’s article gives a concise summary.

    What is of real further interest is Mr, Martin’s consideration of what might have been the way forward for a less gaffe prone candidate than Mr, Romney. In the concluding part of his article Martin hits on reform of capitalism with particular emphasis on the problem of “crony capitalism”. He then concludes that a candidate who emphasised this reformist attitude whilst being connected in a Reaganite manner with the great mass of Americans would have had the winning formula against President Obama who should have been easily beatable given the current economic situation.The one potential candidate for this election who had as their theme the exact formula Mr. Martin proposes was of course Sarah Palin. It was she who introduced the term “crony capitalism’ into the political discourse and it is she who exemplified the Reaganite common touch-in starkest possible contrast to Mitt Romney.It is this formula which will be the winning one for 2016.

    Here is Mr. Martin’s summary;The rise of the Tea Party movement on the right and the Occupy movement on the left were presented as being polar opposite developments. But although they advocated different solutions, they were both taking on big, monopolistic interests: big government, in the Tea Party’s case, and big business and finance in the case of Occupy.Big business and big government are often in bed together, whether it be in the bank bailouts or lobbying for tax breaks which cement advantage.That is one of the main strands of thinking in a brilliant and important new book by the Italian born American economist Luigi Zingales. In A Capitalism For The People (recapturing the lost genius of American prosperity), he suggests that the language of markets has been stolen and subverted.Zingales (who was in London last night at the Centre for Policy Studies) has produced a devastating deconstruction of crony capitalism. He issues a rallying cry for open markets. What is needed is proper competition, to serve the consumer, and a dramatic simplification of the tax system to remove the need for big business to spend so much time worrying about trying to influence the government.In part this echoes the cry of the American progressives from the tail-end of the 19th century and early 20th century, who took on giant monopoly interests such as the Standard Oil Trust (which was eventually broken up). Other targets included J.P. Morgan’s rail interests.In the right hands, an updated agenda of this kind could have been immensely powerful in the current American election, making the case that business and government should serve the interests of the many rather than it being, as it so often is now, the other way round.

    President Teddy Roosevelt, the great trust-busting opponent of monopoly and progressive hero of the opening years of the 20th century, would have been the ideal candidate to take such a platform forward. But unfortunately he died in 1919. Leaving the Republicans with Mitt Romney.

  • panchita

    http://vimeo.com/1762161
     here’s ol’ Sarah in cedar rapids, 4 short years ago, on this day, september 18.

    i’m going to watch last weeks episode of “Project Runway”
     

  • vitadMD

    Kudzu grows as far north as Pennsylvania now. FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps planted it widely.

  • pete4palin

    Romney was the only candidate who could have lost to Obama, and now he just might be doing that.
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100181520/the-spectacular-implosion-of-mitt-romney-means-a-no-choice-us-election/
       

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